Glossary
What is generative engine optimization (GEO)?
Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the practice of making your brand and pages more likely to be mentioned, cited and recommended in answers from AI systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google's AI Overviews. It builds on SEO but targets being quoted inside an answer rather than ranked in a list.
How AI answer engines choose sources
Most AI answers that cite sources use retrieval: the system searches the web or an index, reads the top results, and writes an answer grounded in them, often with links. Google's AI features use a technique it calls query fan-out, running many related searches at once. So being found by search is still the first step. On top of that, engines favour passages that answer the question directly, include specifics and agree with other sources.
What the research found
The paper that coined the term, "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization" (Aggarwal and others, 2023), tested content changes against a benchmark of queries. Adding citations to sources, adding quotations and adding statistics improved a page's visibility in generated answers by up to about 40%, while keyword stuffing did not help. Results varied by domain.
What to do
| Lever | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Be findable | Rank in normal search; allow AI crawlers you want in robots.txt |
| Answer first | Put a clear, self-contained answer at the top of each page |
| Be specific | Numbers, examples, named entities, dates |
| Cite sources | Link primary sources, like academic writing |
| Be consistent | Same facts about your product everywhere: site, directories, databases |
| Get mentioned | Mentions on trusted sites, lists, reviews, communities |
| Structure | Headings, lists, tables, structured data |
Why directories matter for GEO
When someone asks an AI assistant "what tools do X", the assistant often draws on directory pages, review sites and "best of" lists, because those pages compare many products. Being listed consistently across them is one of the most direct ways for a new product to enter AI answers. Of the 352 directories we checked, the biggest are exactly the pages AI search tends to retrieve for product questions.
How to measure it
Track AI visibility: run a fixed set of prompts your buyers would ask in several AI engines every week or month, and record whether you're mentioned, cited or recommended, and which sources the answers used. Watch referral traffic from AI engines in analytics.
Example
A new analytics tool isn't mentioned by any AI assistant for "privacy-friendly analytics for Shopify". Over three months it publishes a comparison page with sourced numbers, gets listed on 40 directories and two review sites with consistent descriptions, and is included in three "best of" articles. A monthly prompt check shows it now appears in two of four engines for that question.
FAQ
Is GEO different from SEO?
It builds on SEO. Ranking and crawlability still matter; GEO adds answer-first writing, citations, consistent facts and mentions across other sites.
Is GEO the same as AEO?
Close. AEO (answer engine optimization) usually means optimising to be the direct answer; GEO usually covers being cited or recommended by generative AI. Many people use them interchangeably.
Can I pay to appear in ChatGPT answers?
Not in organic answers. Some AI products show ads separately.
How long does GEO take?
Weeks to months, mostly driven by how fast new mentions and pages get crawled and retrieved.
Sources
- Aggarwal et al.: GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (arXiv)
- Google Search Central: AI features and your website
- OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers